Listen to podcasts this summer

All of you, but particularly those who need to improve their listening skills by September, should listen to podcasts. Here's a list of pages from which you can download interesting podcasts: Better at English, ESLpod, British Council, Culips, BBC learningenglish-How to, BBC Mundo Aprenda Inglés, Podbean, Speakingenglish Podcasts.

You can listen to them on the computer, or better still, you can download them onto your MP3-player.

To work on one particular podcast, here's a suggestion in 6 steps:

STEP 1: listen to it carefully (closing your eyes might help), trying to understand and remember the main (=principal) ideas.

STEP 2: stop the MP3-player and write down what you think you understood.

STEP 3: listen to the podcast again and check with what you wrote, making corrections.

STEP 4: read the script, if it is available (="disponible") on the webpage, and see where you were right and where you were wrong.

STEP 5: look up the difficult words in the dictionary. Listen to them on your online dictionary (e.g. macmillan).

STEP 6: listen to the podcast again, with or without the script.

TIPS:
- if you feel it is too difficult, try another podcast that is closer to your level.
- follow the 6 steps just with some of the podcasts (maybe one every week/ day, depending on the time you have), but listen -just to get exposure to the language- to as many podcasts as you can.